MediaWatch: November 30, 1998

As independent counsel Kenneth Starr
prepared to address the House Judiciary Committee on November
19, the media were showing no fear. For months, they had
broadcast their Carvillesque incantations and push polls
insisting that Starr was a partisan zealot. These ten months of
hammering home a theme couldn’t be erased in a day.

For large parts of the day, Starr’s legal
interpretation of Monicagate and other scandals provided a
brief respite of equal time for the case against Clinton. But even if
Starr’s testimony carried the potential to rivet America as Ollie
North’s Iran-Contra testimony did in 1987, the networks
insisted that nothing he said would ultimately change the
scandal as they had so relentlessly framed it.

Nine minutes into CBS’s live coverage, Dan
Rather had already laid down his marker, insisting that Starr
has become known as a "Republican partisan." That night on Nightline,
Ted Koppel began: "Inadvertently, at least, some of the
President’s allies did Kenneth Starr an enormous favor. As long as he
did not show up before the House Judiciary Committee this morning
in a stained trench coat with a copy of Hustler magazine under
his arm, he was bound to exceed expectations." The next
morning on Today, Katie Couric joked: "Do you think Ken
Starr’s standing in the opinion polls is going to go up a bit? I
mean, he has nowhere to go but up, right?" Tim Russert smiled
and replied: "Well, exactly right. Lower than Saddam Hussein in
many of the polls."

The news networks (CNN, MSNBC, FNC) stayed with
Starr all day long, beginning at 10 A.M. Eastern time. While
the Big Three all went live at the beginning, CBS aired the
most coverage, while ABC left early and NBC jumped out early and often.
ABC signed off at about 3:17 because Republicans weren’t
providing an alternative viewpoint to Starr. Peter Jennings
claimed: "We were trying to make the point a little earlier
today that we heard Mr. Starr at length this morning and we saw
a lot of Democratic agitation, so we wanted an opportunity for
the Democrats this afternoon to have a go at Mr. Starr, in
purely generic terms, and the Republicans do not seem disposed
to have at him, so we are going to try to keep the sense of
balance by coming back a little later on today and listening to Mr.
Clinton’s lawyer David Kendall question Mr. Starr as well."
Jennings offered this reasoning after Democratic counsel Abbe
Lowell grilled Starr for an hour. (Kendall’s quibbles with
Starr were later excerpted on Nightline.)

Evening News. That evening, the networks led with
multiple stories about his appearance featuring many
soundbites of his comments, as well as Democratic attacks on
him. Reporters noticed Starr’s calm demeanor, and Democrats’
failure to challenge Starr on the evidence against Clinton. An
even balance of comments for and against Starr was quite a feat. But
the networks still attempted to convince the public that this
impeachment process was doomed.

ABC’s Jackie Judd noted: "Clearly, the
Independent Counsel had a huge challenge going into this
hearing, to reshape his public image and to restore credibility to his
much-maligned investigation." ABC also insured the coverage
wouldn’t get too tough by not calling conservative analysts
George Will or William Kristol into the studio at any time
during the day or night, although Jennings called on George
Stephanopoulos and Cokie Roberts.

CBS’s Dan Rather produced the strangest image
of the night, calling the hearing "an extraordinary mix of
lofty constitutional law and muddy mosh-pit politics." (As if
Republicans and Democrats and Ken Starr were jumping up and down and
into each other at a Nine Inch Nails concert.) As usual, Rather
marshaled Clinton-friendly poll results, although he gave no word
of when the poll was taken. One result indicated Clinton’s
high approval rating (67 percent). Another, listed on the
screen as "Reason for Republican inquiry?", found 56 percent
answering "to damage Clinton" and just 34 percent saying "to
investigate charges." Bob McNamara reported from Fort Worth
about how conservative talk show host Mark Davis conceded
listeners are "tired and bored and want the story to go away."

On NBC, Lisa Myers noted that under "ferocious
attack" from Democrats, Starr was "unflappable, although he
hasn’t changed many minds." Then Gwen Ifill reported on
"moderate" Republicans: "Just upstairs from the impeachment hearings
today: political reality. Illinois Congressman John Porter, one of
at least a dozen Republicans who say that even if the
committee recommends impeachment, he probably won’t. "Ifill
concluded: "Now even the President’s enemies want middle
ground, not impeachment."

Sam Dash Quits. Whatever ground Starr gained, the
networks sought to erode the next evening after Sam Dash, the
former Democratic Watergate counsel and ethics adviser to
Starr, resigned in protest of Starr’s testimony. ABC’s Peter
Jennings suggested: "A single lawyer may have done the kind of
damage to the independent counsel Kenneth Starr today that 16 Democratic
Congressmen and the President’s lawyer didn’t quite manage to
do yesterday." Although she reported that Dash had been under
pressure from the White House and other Democrats to resign,
Jackie Judd touted Dash’s "impeccable credentials as an adviser
on ethics."

On CBS, the same Dan Rather who regularly calls
Starr a "Republican partisan" referred to "the widely
respected, independent Sam Dash." Rather and reporter Scott
Pelley never referred to Dash as a Democrat.

NBC’s Lisa Myers joined Judd in noting a
possible White House connection to Dash’s day-after departure,
but Tom Brokaw began the show with a funeral dirge: "Good
evening. In poll after poll and in other ways, the public says it does
not want President Clinton impeached. That issue hurt the
Republicans in the elections. Special prosecutor Ken Starr
offered no new smoking guns in his long appearance before the
Judiciary Committee. And then tonight a stunning new blow to
Starr’s reputation: his own ethics adviser has quit in protest.
That has only accelerated the unraveling of the impeachment
process."

Four days later, Scripps-Howard Editor Dan
Thomasson noted what viewers missed: Dash’s "reputation for
partisanship was relatively well-demonstrated" during
Watergate. Dash edited out unfavorable mentions of Democratic presidents
in Nixon White House memos, and allowed his probers to leak
material damaging to Nixon, including the existence of a White
House taping system.

NewsBites

Livingston, We Impugn The media seemed to approve of
incoming House Speaker Bob Livingston. Unlike the monstrous
Newt Gingrich, Livingston is a more conventional glad-handing
politician than conservative ideologue. But CBS still found a
way to attack him, Eric Engberg portrayed his legal fundraising work
on behalf of House candidates as sleazy, if not unique.

Engberg explained how the unopposed Livingston had $600,000
in funds to give to other GOP House candidates. BOB’s PAC was
created to distribute another $800,000. Engberg intoned: "CBS
News also found that Livingston exploited gaping legal loopholes in
the election laws to get more bang for his buck by channeling
donations from business lobbyists through his PAC to other GOP
campaigns...United Parcel Service sent Livingston’s PAC a check
for $5,000, but it’s made out to a House candidate named Ernie
Fletcher. Records show the check is earmarked for Fletcher and
that BOB’s PAC simply passes it on to him. Livingston thus
collects the political chit. All told, business PACs delivered
checks totaling about $50,000." After two soundbites from the
liberal Center for Responsive Politics, Engberg ended: "Livingston
became the unopposed king of the Hill by first becoming the king of
cash."

A Scary Growth The media will often praise a conservative who starts leaning leftward by saying he has "grown in office." The Washington Post
delivered a classic example of this cliche Monday, November
16. In a front-page profile, reporters Eric Pianin and George
Hager wrote without irony that despite his conservative record,
Livingston has shown "enormous capacity to grow," and that
while arriving in Congress with "knee-jerk conservative views,"
he has since "matured into an adroit legislator."

Tripp’s Time Out With the release of the Tripp tapes, the
networks had enhanced capabilities to underline evidence of
presidential perjury and witness tampering. But instead of
focusing on the incriminating content of the tapes, the media
took the more familiar tack of trashing the ones who exposed
Clinton.

The November 18 CBS Evening News was typical. After citing a
poll showing 62 percent agreed that Starr was not "impartial
but, rather politically motivated and out to get the Clintons,"
Dan Rather hinted: "So is there any basis for this
perception?" In a "Reality Check" segment, Eric Engberg found that,
surprise, there was: "Before the tapes came out Linda Tripp told us
she only did what anyone in her shoes would have done."

Engberg cut to the famous Tripp sound bite from outside the
courthouse where she declares "I’m just like you. I am an
average American who found herself in a situation not of her own
making." Engberg interjected, "Time out. The tapes show her carefully
coordinating her betrayal of Lewinsky with an accomplice,
Lucianne Goldberg, book agent and self-proclaimed
Clinton-hater." Engberg concluded: "Just another average
American helping out a friend."

Tim the Tool ABC’s Good Morning America provided
Ken Starr a chance to warm up for his grilling by House
Democrats when reporter Tim O’Brien peppered him with questions
right out of the Democrats playbook the night before his
testimony.

O’Brien asked, "Did you in any way assist Paula Jones’
lawyers in deposing the President?" and, "One of the things
that people don’t get...how this case, starting as a land deal in
Arkansas became an investigation of lying about sex in the White
House." Even when he posed a question that dealt with the
substance of Starr’s case against Clinton, he downplayed its
seriousness: "It amazes your defenders as you make this great
case against the President, the public doesn’t seem to buy it.
They say, yes, adultery is wrong, lying is wrong, especially
under oath, but is it worth all this time and all this money
and possibly removing the President? Why is this offense so
great?"

On June 11, 1990, as Reagan aide John Poindexter’s
fate laid before a judge, O’Brien didn’t check a poll to
measure morality. He reported the judge must determine "what
punishment it will take to teach a lesson about abuse of power
to John Poindexter, to those who follow him in the corridors of
the White House."

Who Will Contribute
to Paula's Pay Day

Media Stay Silent on Clinton’s Sexual Harassment Insurance

By brushing off the Paula Jones
settlement as an overdue end to one of the President’s many
distractions, the networks overlooked Bill Clinton’s dubious
deal with an insurance company to avoid paying Jones out of his
own pocket.

The November 14 Washington Post reported:
"Sources said the President’s lawyers have reached a tentative
agreement with Chubb Group Insurance to buy out the personal
liability policy that has covered some of his legal expenses
for close to half the settlement. When all is said and done, ‘not a
penny will come out of his pocket,’ said one person close to the
situation."

The insurance coverage should have raised all the issues uncovered by Byron York in a 1996 American Spectator
piece on how Chubb and State Farm ignored their own rules and
industry norms to cover costs of the Jones suit. But the
networks have never investigated that fishy tale. Only FNC’s David
Shuster and NBC’s Lisa Myers noted the insurance companies’ role.
Myers did not highlight the specifics of the Chubb Group deal
in her brief mention: "Sources close to the President are
optimistic the money will come from his insurance policies, not
from the Clintons themselves."

ABC’s Jackie Judd, CBS’s Phil Jones, and CNN’s
Eileen O’Connor all failed to note Clinton’s insurance policies
and the simple fact that Clinton gave Jones $150,000 more than
her original request to smother the case.

This is not the way these networks handled Newt
Gingrich in April of 1997, when Bob Dole announced he would
loan Gingrich money to help him pay a $300,000 assessment to
the House Ethics Committee for the probe of his college course. On ABC,
Cokie Roberts said: "It contributes to the whole view that
everybody inside of Washington is in cahoots." On CNN, Steve
Roberts asked: "Do we really want a Speaker of the House who
owes $300,000 to a guy who’s a principal of a major lobbying
firm?"

CBS anchor Paula Zahn connected the loan to
current legislation: "The suggestion of some kind of tobacco
connection to the Gingrich-Dole loan deal comes as the tobacco
industry is reportedly working on a $300 billion deal to settle
government and private health lawsuits."

Larry Klayman’s Judicial Watch has filed suit
to prevent payouts from either of Clinton’s funders — the
insurers and his legal defense fund. But the networks began and
ended the Jones case with willful indifference to the ethical questions
for Clinton.

Double Standard on Death

60 Minutes Aids Kevorkian’s Crusade

CBS’s landmark magazine show 60 Minutes
made its name in hunting down killer corporations — Audi’s
supposedly dangerous accelerators, Uniroyal’s allegedly harmful
Alar pesticide. But when Jack Kevorkian came to 60 Minutes with a
videotape of a death he inflicted in his crusade to make
euthanasia legal, Mike Wallace gave him most of a 14-minute
segment to air his tape and make his case.

Wallace promoted the death to come: "In a few
minutes, you will see Dr. Kevorkian end this man’s life. First,
though, we’ll tell you why Mr. Youk [the man requesting death]
wanted Dr. Kevorkian to do it, and why Dr. Kevorkian wanted you
to see it even though it could get him charged with murder." After the
CBS audience saw Kevorkian’s willing victim suffocate on
camera, Wallace asked him: "You were engaged in a political ,
medical, macabre publicity venture, right?" And so was CBS.

A medical ethicist from the University of
Chicago was allowed 90 seconds of rebuttal. But the rest of the
time was dedicated to Kevorkian’s crusade to move from docter-assisted
suicide to active doctor-inflicted euthanasia. Youk’s family
was included to testify to his suffering from Lou Gehrig’s
disease. Wallace asked: "And I take it you would not be sitting
here unless you thought it was useful, socially useful to have
this broadcast?"

So would CBS apply this "socially useful"
standard to other forms of death, like abortion? When a
congressional candidate presented a campaign ad in 1992 showing
grotesque images of aborted babies, CBS condemned him on the April 20,
1992 Evening News. Reporter Wyatt Andrews attacked:
"Michael Bailey, an anti-abortion candidate for Congress in
Indiana today began airing what could be the most tasteless ad
ever shown on television. What’s more, he’s a candidate,
protected against censorship. No one can stop him." But CBS did
stop him: they blurred the images into a blank gray screen.
"While we have altered these pictures, Bailey’s ad explicitly
shows full-term human fetuses and the bodily remains he says
are the products of abortion. Video shock therapy comes to abortion-era
politics."

Andrews finished: "TV stations in Indianapolis
and Louisville are questioning whether Bailey is abusing the
law, whether under FCC rules, any zealot with a candidate’s
filing fee can put anything on TV...Tastelessness in television
may not be new, but this case is unique."

Perjurers Are Punished

For months, TV news viewers have been hearing
that no one is ever punished, let alone charged, for committing
perjury when lying about sex in a federal civil case. Over the
past few weeks, though, Dateline, Today, 20/20 and NBC Nightly News all have discovered the case of Barbara Battalino and others imprisoned for doing just that.

As detailed by Dan Abrams on the November 11 Today,
Battalino, a female psychiatrist in a Veterans Administration
hospital, had oral sex with Ed Arthur, a male patient. When he
sued her for medical malpractice, she denied it in the civil
proceeding. Arthur then recorded his conversations with her, a la
Linda Tripp, and Battalino found herself indicted by the Justice
Department. "In that case," Abrams reported, "Barbara Battalino was
charged with perjury and in a plea bargain received six months
of home detention."

Stone Phillips also pointed out, during the first report about Battalino on the November 6 Dateline, that similar to the Paula Jones case, the federal court also threw out Arthur's case.

Sam Donaldson took it a step further, tracking
down two more women, in addition to Battalino, who are now
serving prison time for lying about sex in civil suits on the
November 11 20/20. In addition to relating the specifics of each
case, Donaldson also allowed federal judge Lacey Collier to
tell why perjury matters in all cases: "If a person comes to
court and cannot be counted on when he takes the oath, then
that’s very destructive of the entire system because truth,
justice, that is what we’re all about in the judicial system.
And it fails when the truth is not told under oath."

But evening news viewers had to wait until the November 19 NBC Nightly News
to find out from Pete Williams about Battalino and the others
like her. While finally seeing these reports is gratifying,
four are hardly enough to balance out more than 9 months worth
of reporter comments that lying about sex is not a serious
matter. In fact, Battalino’s story first came to light in a
June 22 editorial by David Tell in The Weekly Standard. It
would be another four months before network viewers would be told
about her and the other cases, conveniently just days after the
elections.

Federal employees and military personnel can donate to the Media Research Center through the Combined Federal Campaign or CFC. To donate to the MRC, use CFC #12489. Visit the CFC website for more information about giving opportunities in your workplace.